Tattooing is a widespread and widely practiced body decoration technique, in which markings, drawings, letters, symbols or other patterns are etched onto the body by piercing the permanent layer of the skin and simultaneously injecting colored pigments.
In recent years, this technique has been used widely in the aesthetic and cosmetic field in the form of so-called “permanent makeup”, which consists in tattooing the parts of the face (eyebrows, eye line, lips . . . ) that are normally made up with traditional cosmetic products.
To perform this technique, it is known to use devices commonly conventionally known as tattoo machines, which have an elongated hollow body that can be maneuvered manually and is suitable to contain a coloring liquid and to act as a guide for one or more movable needles.
Commonly, one end of the hollow body is provided with an exit hole for the liquid, inside which the needle can slide in a reciprocating fashion between two end positions, i.e., a position in which it is fully inserted within the hollow body and a position in which the tip of the needle protrudes from the hole in order to penetrate the skin and entrain the coloring liquid with it.
Motor means are generally fitted on the hollow body and push the needle between the two end positions, imparting thereto a vibrating motion, i.e., with sudden and immediate changes in direction; in practice, when the end position that lies outside the hollow body is reached, the tip of the needle is immediately retracted up to the opposite end position, where it reverses again suddenly.
The motor means are activated not only to allow the needle to penetrate the skin while making the tattoo but also to fill the hollow body with the required coloring liquid; the hole for the exit of the liquid from the hollow body is in fact commonly used also as an inlet, and filling is performed generally by capillary action by dipping the end of the hollow body provided with the hole in a container that contains the pigment and by moving the needle in order to facilitate its drawing.
These known tattoo machines are not free from drawbacks, including the fact that the motor means with which they are provided have substantial dimensions and increase considerably the weight of the hollow body, accordingly limiting its maneuverability and easy handling.
Moreover, the vibrating motion to which the needle is subjected does not allow the coloring liquid to spread within the skin uniformly, since the pigment does not have the time to be absorbed by the epidermis when the tip of the needle reaches the end position that lies outside the hollow body.
In this regard, it is noted that in order to improve the diffusion of the color within the skin, the operator is often forced to apply more pressure to the tattoo machine and to incline it, increasing the penetration of the needle and accordingly the pain of the person on which the tattoo is produced, in addition to causing incorrect healing of the skin.
Moreover, the needles used in conventional tattoo machines are often substantially rigid and thick and even slight pressures on the hollow body can cause excesses in skin piercing.
Moreover, it is noted that for health and sanitary reasons the needles must be strictly sterilized after each use or must be of the disposable type; in both cases they require repetitive steps for fitting/removing in/from the hollow body, requiring considerable time and particular care on the part of the operator.
In particular, the fitting step is particularly delicate, since the needles must not be contaminated at all in order to avoid compromising the health of the person with whom they must make contact.
Finally, it is noted that known tattoo machines can contain very limited amounts of coloring liquid inside them, since the higher the level reached by the liquid within the hollow body, the larger the amount of pigment that adheres to the needle and is entrained with it during its outward motion and therefore contrasts the drawing action; in practice, this forces the user to perform repeated filling operations, slowing the execution of the tattoo considerably.